The increase of this “spontaneous” cell death upon MLKL overexpression implies that elevated MLKL expression may confer HNSCC cells a higher propensity to develop necroptosis, which is in consistent with our result that the p-MLKL expression is correlated with MLKL expression in patients’ tissues (Table. The gene discussed is MLKL; the disease is head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.